Sillyness insues

If I learned anything @ this past weekend’s prerelease I can sum it up in three truths.

1. Consistent decks win pods/drafts
2. Goofy interactions win games
3. Random luck is the great equalizer

Having a consistent deck in the upcoming limited format is almost more important that having amazing bombs. In XXX draft bombs just win drafts. In triple Lorwyn I think that consistency is more important than sheer power. For example I watched both a white green kithkin and a blue black faerie deck just destroy their opponents as each deck made the basically the same in each of several games in a row. It was no surprise to find out that each of these players hade two or more copies of each common creature/spell in their decks. I know that it seems very obvious to state that multiples of cards are good in draft, but none of these cards are game winners in and of themselves, which leads me to my second point.

Goofy interactions win games. Scoop_phase is all too familiar with the interaction of Summon the School & Judge of Currents. For those that don’t know here are the relevant cards:

Summon the School

3W
Tribal Sorcery — Merfolk
Put two 1/1 blue Merfolk Wizard creature tokens into play.Tap four untapped Merfolk you control: Return Summon the School from your graveyard to your hand.


Judge of Currents

1W
Creature — Merfolk Wizard
1/1
Whenever a Merfolk you control becomes tapped, you may gain 1 life.


All you need is one other merfolk and you can stall long enough to draw answers or win conditions. I pulled this off myself during the sealed portion with only a single copy of each, but saw a ridiculous deck pull it off with multiples of each of the above cards. It should not be a problem is you can draw an answer, but the deck I saw ran counter spells to protect the combo from the few sweepers out there.

Finally, sometimes the magic gods just don’t like you. I myself have had several runs of great luck and poor luck over the past year and will be the first to admit that I win games I should not win and lose games that I should not loose. This past Saturday was no exception. I got the nuts draw in game one against my round one opponent in my 2nd draft pod. Unfortunately he also had the nuts draw and had an answer for every threat I played and more threats than I had answers. Amazing top decks and mana screw just happen. These are part of why we keep coming back to the game we enjoy so much.